Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner

#211

Post by raxxorrax » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 6:47 AM UTC

noja wrote: post #204

acdc4life wrote: post #35

"[They] allow the live streaming of suicides, rapes, and murders, continue to host and publish the mosque attack video, allow advertisers to target ‘Jew haters’ and other hateful market segments, and refuse to accept any responsibility for any content or harm." I stopped reading after this point. Facebook has no clue what kind of stuff gets posted on their platform, and their AI isn't powerful enough to detect it. Th…

> Facebook has no clue what kind of stuff gets posted on their platform Well there is your problem. Why is Facebook held to a different standard than other media? ("Because they want to earn more money" is not a good answer)

Because the platform offers user content without any claims of correctness.

Education about handling media is the better approach to banning. It is naive to think politically charged content would be exempt from ambitions to ban it.

Re: Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner

#212

Post by smallgovt » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 6:47 AM UTC

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #100

acdc4life wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of these tech companies have the ability to do that. What you are suggesting would mean the death of every social media company.

If you don't have the ability to control your premises, or employ enough security, perhaps you should not be permitted to operate those premises. Unsafe clubs get closed down. They - or any other social media company - don't have a right to exist. If societies around the world conclude they do more harm than good as they currently operate, it's perfectly reasonable to require them to moderate adequately. If they cann…

>> Facebook could employ thousands more to moderate and supervise - without destroying their ability to make profit

You're underestimating the scale of this problem.

Facebook users create billions of new posts a day. And, tens of millions of these posts get reported for moderation per day.

"Thousands of more" employees isn't going to solve the problem. Assuming each posts takes 10 minutes of labor to review, you would need an army of 200K individuals, and this amount of labor would cost many billions of dollars per year.

>> Pretending the problems don't exist, as all the platforms have done so far

You must be joking. Facebook has already made massive investments into moderation. It's their top priority for 2019. In many ways, they are doing the opposite of pretending this problem doesn't exist.

>> They - or any other social media company - don't have a right to exist.

Nobody is arguing that FB has an inherent right to exist. The only point GP made was that (as made evident by your comment) many people are underestimating the associated costs with manual moderation of content.

Re: Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner

#213

Post by raxxorrax » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 6:48 AM UTC

HNthrow22 wrote: post #56

acdc4life wrote: post #35

"[They] allow the live streaming of suicides, rapes, and murders, continue to host and publish the mosque attack video, allow advertisers to target ‘Jew haters’ and other hateful market segments, and refuse to accept any responsibility for any content or harm." I stopped reading after this point. Facebook has no clue what kind of stuff gets posted on their platform, and their AI isn't powerful enough to detect it. Th…

> Facebook has no clue what kind of stuff gets posted on their platform, and their AI isn't powerful enough to detect it. The idea that Facebook is causing/enabling such behaviors is ridiculous. I contend as a society we should hold these massive tech orgs (who have more power than most governments) to the standard of moderating the content that's posted to their platforms. They have the money and profits to hire hum…

My country does employ active discrimination so I think this idea is terrible.

Re: Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner

#214

Post by baby » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 6:51 AM UTC

bArray wrote: post #156

> Zuckerberg said incidents like the live streaming of the > Christchurch mosque attacks were the result of “bad > actors”; not bad technology and a time delay would disrupt > the enjoyment of users who broadcast events like birthday > parties or group hangouts. In this case, he is 100% correct. Facebook, or social media in general, is a tool. A powerful tool, but a tool nevertheless. Knives for example aren't evil a…

Wait. How many knife attacks are there been in London? I thought it was only a few times?

Re: Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner

#215

Post by kaveh_h » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 6:51 AM UTC

acdc4life wrote: post #35

"[They] allow the live streaming of suicides, rapes, and murders, continue to host and publish the mosque attack video, allow advertisers to target ‘Jew haters’ and other hateful market segments, and refuse to accept any responsibility for any content or harm." I stopped reading after this point. Facebook has no clue what kind of stuff gets posted on their platform, and their AI isn't powerful enough to detect it. Th…

It’s not the same thing at all, Facebook is a social media platform that enables distribution of material to a broad public. Terrorists clearly use social media hopping it will reach as many as possible. Remove the non-moderated access to distribution to a broad public and the incentive is lowered.

Re: Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner

#216

Post by cbluth » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 6:54 AM UTC

drcross wrote: post #205

nilskidoo wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And "horrible fucked up shit" amounts to clicks. People don't stream Lawrence Welk for their modern entertainment needs. I say the company knows damn well what content it leaves untouched. It caters to enablers.

Well, to play devil's advocate to your point, it's barely Facebook's fault that the public has an appetite for such heinous material. People want to watch these things, why do we blame Facebook for that and not ourselves?

Don't swing too far.

Facebook needs some blame too.

Re: Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner

#217

Post by raxxorrax » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 6:57 AM UTC

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #140

WillPostForFood wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't have the ability to control your premises, or employ enough security, perhaps you should not be permitted to operate those premises. So we should shut down the mosques in New Zealand because they didn't control their premises and keep the shooter out? Should we shut down banks because they didn't have enough security to keep a bank robber out? You are shifting the blame away from the perpetrator. Every c…

Let's take it to the absurd. I am NOT shifting any blame from the perpetrator. I am placing additional blame on a medium that isn't willing to exercise adequate restraint or control. A bank undoubtedly has security measures in place to prevent robbery, if they don't bother, they won't last long. Nonetheless, there are regulations on what may and may not be done for public spaces, how crowded they may be to pass fire…

adequate restraint or control is a subjective impression most users probably do not agree with.

Re: Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner

#218

Post by kevingadd » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 6:59 AM UTC

drcross wrote: post #205

nilskidoo wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And "horrible fucked up shit" amounts to clicks. People don't stream Lawrence Welk for their modern entertainment needs. I say the company knows damn well what content it leaves untouched. It caters to enablers.

Well, to play devil's advocate to your point, it's barely Facebook's fault that the public has an appetite for such heinous material. People want to watch these things, why do we blame Facebook for that and not ourselves?

Multiple parties can be to blame for a problem, friend.

Re: Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner

#219

Post by purplezooey » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 7:01 AM UTC

The "bad actors" argument sounds similar to the anti-gun control argument. Nobody wants regulation, but how many pointless, needless deaths are too many?

Re: Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner

#220

Post by spaginal » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 7:04 AM UTC

fapjacks wrote: post #91

m0zg wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're asking for also leads to total, Chinese-style censorship, as the government finds more and more content on these network it doesn't particularly like and therefore considers "extremist". Fun fact: Russia has recently passed a set of laws under which you can go to jail for simply "disrespecting" a government official. This "disrespect" can take the form, for example, of pointing out that their spending is…

The amount of vocal support for censorship in here is frankly unbelievable, bordering on comically absurd.

It is an uncomfortable trend.

I’ve largely ducked out of these conversations on HN anymore, trying to explain why basic free speech is important, and hitting resistance, shows the obvious failings (success?) of public modern schooling.

We have a new young generation that seems to unquestionably look to government for all answers, and demand to be silenced by biased censors and it’s shocking.